The Muse

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Burton constructs the dual plotline with painstaking craft, and has a good ear for the ambient interruptions of nature: “the cicadas began to build their rasping wall of sound”; “Bees drowsing on the fat flower heads, farmers’ voices calling, birdsong arpeggios spritzing from the trees”. There is much to recommend. The Muse. Not only is the tale of love, danger, betrayal and revolution in 1936 Spain riveting for the impact on the characters, it offers us a time-and-place look at a nation on the verge of darkness, a harbinger of horrors to come. Human drama meets historical madness. Burton’s portrait of 1967 London was certainly interesting, particularly for the challenges faced by non-whites, and for how people born in less central parts of the British Empire relate to the Queen-motherland. But Spain is where the real action is here.

Spain, 1937. Olive Schloss, the daughter of a Viennese Jewish art dealer and English heiress, follows her parents to Arazuelo, a poor, restless village on the southern coast. She grows close to Teresa, a young housekeeper, and her half-brother Isaac Robles, an idealistic and ambitious painter newly returned from the Barcelona salons. A dilettante buoyed by the revolutionary fervor that will soon erupt into civil war, Isaac dreams of being a painter as famous as his countryman, Picasso. Quinn, Anthony (25 June 2016). "The Muse by Jessie Burton". The Guardian. London . Retrieved 29 June 2016. It's funny how Jessie Burton is able to write stories that are quite similar, but that are still able to evoke very opposing emotions in me. Some years ago, I read "The Miniaturist" and I wasn't impressed. I still appreciated the story, though, and so I decided to get "The Muse" as well and read it. I'm so happy I did! It turned out that I liked this novel a lot better, and in many ways I read it at just the perfect time of my life. The story focuses on the discover, in 1967, of a long lost painting by Isaac Robles, a young artist whose life is pretty much a mystery, and it follows Odelle's search for information about it and its painter. This search brings her to Olive's story, set in Arazuelo in 1937, just a few months before Isaac's mysterious death. It’s a complex story weaving themes set in different countries 30 years apart. But as the title suggests, it’s about creativity and what can inspire it.

The Sydney Morning Herald

The plot follows two different but interwined timelines. We have Odelle, a Caribbean immigrant in London in 1967, and Olive Schloss, daughter of an art dealer in Spain in 1937.

A former stage actress, Burton's work in theatre includes The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other at the National Theatre, London in 2008. [6] Having aimed to be "a successful stage actress", by the age of 28 she had stalled in this career, and "could see the writing on the wall - the dream to be the next Kate Winslet wasn’t going to happen. I never fell out of love with acting, it fell out of love with me"; difficulty in getting auditions meant she worked temp jobs, including as a personal assistant in the City of London. [1] [7] Writing career [ edit ] The truth about the painting lies in 1936 and a large house in southern Spain, where Olive Schloss, the daughter of a renowned art dealer, is harbouring ambitions of her own. Into this fragile paradise come artist and revolutionary Isaac Robles and his half-sister Teresa, who immediately insinuate themselves into the Schloss family, with explosive and devastating consequences . . . Sweeping from London in the sixties to 1930s rural Spain, The Muse is an unforgettable novel about love, obsession and a mysterious painting. From Jessie Burton, the million-copy bestselling author of The Miniaturist. Blood alive, head singing from the way Isaac had looked at her … she ran her fingers over the paint tubes hidden under the cottons … Olive felt a familiar connection, as if her heart was slotting into place." Unlike the people in her life, Olive's paints, pastels and powders "had always been loyal".This book is about inspiration and the process of creation. About working in anonymity for the sole purpose of working vs. creating for acclaim or compensation, and about the freedom the former brings. As it turned out it just took way too long to flesh out details and as the story progresses and connections are made between the two characters and times, it felt a bit like a soap opera. 3 stars which for me means that I liked it but didn't find it to be one that will be memorable.